Earth's 'mineral kingdom' evolved hand in hand with life

AS LIFE evolved in all its abundance and diversity, so too did the minerals that make up Earth’s rocks. Two-thirds of the kingdom of minerals bear the traces of the presence of life – a view that could shake up our picture of Earth’s geological history and even help find life on other planets.

“Rocks and life evolved in parallel,” says Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory in Washington DC. “It’s so obvious – you wonder why we geologists didn’t think of it before.”

All rocks are made up of constituent minerals. For example, granite contains quartz, mica and feldspar. …